Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5715, Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5715, ENSURING CONTINUED ACCESS TO STUDENT LOANS ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - April 16, 2008)

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Mr. SESSIONS. I appreciate the gentleman from Florida, my good friend on the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, today we walk in to the floor to hear question after question after question. And I admire the gentlewoman from Florida for asking these questions that she asks and posing the issues, the issues of our time, energy policy, tax policy, men and women who are hardworking Americans trying to pay their bills. And yet I would say the conclusion that came out, which I agree with, ``And this is why, thank goodness, we have a Democrat majority,'' the Democrat majority has now been in power for some 17 months, and yet we find the Democrat majority is simply coming to the floor asking questions, ``Oh, my gosh, what's happening?'' And the answer that I heard over and over was, we've got to make sure ``we,'' meaning the government, provide these low-cost loans. We've got to make sure that the government has all these things available for people.

The government should not be the answer to the problem. The answer should be that this Democrat majority needs to understand that they've got to accept responsibility that gas prices have gone up 60 percent since they have taken over, that it is their agenda that this country now operates under; that we have seen and we understood now through not just two budgets, but through the policy that is being enunciated all around this country on behalf of the Democrat Party of raising taxes and making sure that we have an economic policy that is not based upon trying to grow more jobs, but rather, about fairness.

We have seen the tax policy from this new Democrat majority of 17 months, raising taxes, going to double the capital gains tax. Well, Madam Speaker, what I would say to you is, no wonder we're in economic problems. Seventeen months ago, the people who planned for jobs in this country--that are called employers--have understood that they're going to pay higher taxes. We already have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, but now we're going to tax investors.

So the tax policy is very plain and simple. The tax policy is that we are going to bleed, soak investors for more money so that the government can get the money so that we can then do more from the government perspective. Well, Madam Speaker, I would have to say to you, this could be the death of the free enterprise system. When you tax people, they make decisions. And when you tax something, you get less of it. In this case, we are now seeing economic downturn. We are now seeing dollars that are investment dollars, rather than coming to the United States, they're going overseas. The tax policy does have an impact on the economic viability of this country.

Secondly, the energy policy. We have seen the answer from the Speaker. Speaker Pelosi put forth an energy bill that was really pretty good, but it had nothing to do with supply side. The supply of energy, of gasoline is what America needs today. And so we passed this big energy bill, and we see prices continuing to rise. We're told we're supposed to make this transition to this green environment, and all the jobs that will come as a result of that. But, in fact, what will happen is we will lose the jobs that we have today and wait for that to come.

Madam Speaker, we're almost to the point where a majority of the gasoline is no longer oil, it's gasoline, because the jobs that produce the oil to gasoline are overseas because we don't want those jobs in this country. Dubai is being built and has flourished as a result of Democratic Party policies. The money from American consumers are building Dubai. Since 1995, the Republican Party, in trying to work with President Clinton, we said, let us supply more energy here. What do we do? We get a veto.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.

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